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Nanotechnology to reduce testing on animals?

By Christine Peterson, on November 19th, 2007

Most of us avoid thinking much about the testing of human products on animals to check for safety. It’s distressing and we wish there were another, better way.

Nanotech should eventually make such testing entirely obsolete, and the early stages of this process have begun. You can hear the latest in London this May at Nanotechnology: Towards Reducing Animal Testing:

Animal testing is costly and there is a great deal of research on finding viable and effective alternatives (new methods that refine existing tests by minimizing animal distress, reducing animal usage, or replacing whole animal tests). Despite large reductions in animal testing since the early 1980s due to improved in vitro methods, levels remain high (over 3 million procedures in 2006) and results cannot always be extrapolated to humans.

The application of nanotechnology is currently revolutionizing medicine and this two-day conference, the first of its kind in Europe, will examine the role nanotechnology could also play in improving or refining the development of alternatives to animal testing whilst maintaining safety.

Presumably, this use of nanotech is one that we can all support. —Christine

November 19th, 2007 | Category: Environment, Health, and Safety, Ethics, Foresight Kudos, Future Medicine, Meetings & Conferences, Nano, Nanomedicine, Nanotech, Nanotechnology, Opinion, Public participation, Research

1 comment to Nanotechnology to reduce testing on animals?

  • blahblah
    December 2nd, 2007 at 9:56 PM

    i think there might be some improvement needed to be done on the treatment of animals for animal testing, like decreasing the number of uneccessary tests so we can decrease the number of animals becoming ill or dying. But i dont think animal testing should be completely banned just because some people feel bad for the cute little monkies and critters. Animal testing is too important to be banned, but it can be improved.